That’s right, “Tiny Masters of Today” (TMOT)! Well, they’re not really the masters, I’m sure their parents would agree. But, the musical trio, Tiny Masters of Today, are quite young, hence the “Tiny” moniker, I suppose.
I did my best to NOT read any of the reviews about this group, except to download a couple of publicity photos and to glean only the briefest information on some headings of a couple Web searches, so that I’d be able to share as uninfluenced an opinion as possible with NJT readers. And, as of 2010, this Brooklyn trio is comprised of a vocalist/guitar-playing brother, at age 15, a vocalist/bass-playing sister, at age 13, and an unrelated drummer, at 16 years old. Apparently, the brother and sister were a musical duo at least from the ages of 13 and 11.
So, you might ask, how did I get exposure to TMOT music, anyway, without knowing much about them and since I don’t like Kid Music? Well, I was simply downloading some other songs or music videos from Apple’s iTunes Store, when that website automatically introduced TMOT music, since they seemed to be of a similar genre, i.e., Post-Punk, Indie, New Wave, etc. And I was pleasantly surprised enough by TMOT to download four or five songs, and their two music videos, too. And I’ll tell you now, TMOT doesn’t come off too much like Kid Music. Not at all. It’s youthful, but without the whiny, love-slobbish lyrics that plague even bands of more advanced ages. They have a BIG, Electro-Grunge and Power-Pop sonic “feel”, with lots of edgy sounds or filtering effects, plenty of catchy loops, all without being too slickly produced.
What’s not to like about all that!
By the way, you weaker brothers and sisters may be wondering if Citizens of New Jerusalem or Christian Anarchists can listen to Punk Rock and similar music? Obviously, yes! I do. I mean, I mostly prefer certain Early Punk and New Wave bands, having living for about 50 years on planet Earth and having been lucky enough to have enjoyed some of the Punk, New Wave and Ska Scene when it was really going on (around 1977-1985), in places like Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, San Diego, and Perth-Australia. Not that I’ve ever sported a Mohawk or safety pins, though.
Why wouldn’t a Christian Anarchist just listen to “Christian Music”, instead? Some probably do. But, Christian Music is almost never critical of Statist Idolatry and the State’s anti-Christian foundation, which rests on a monopoly in the use of Force and threats of Violence. Or it will often contain Futurist-Rapture themes, or will focus on Pie-In-The-Sky After-You-Die stuff, which tends to diminish appropriate Christian behavior and the meaning of Christ’s Kingdom, on Earth, as it apparently is in Heaven. Plus, I find Christian Music to be very boring, sonically speaking.
So, to hear powerful sounding music with liberating themes related to our existence in the here-and-now, you usually have to get away from state-incorporated churchgoers and their whiny yearnings for true happiness and Christ’s Kingdom, which they project out into the future or as a reality that’s possible only after they’re dead.
You know, I’m talking about fun bands that also tend to tell the truth about human reality as they actually perceive it for themselves; bands like Dead Kennedy’s, Pennywise, The Clash, Gang of Four, Specials, Joy Division, T.S.O.L, MDC, B-52s, Rage Against The Machine, The Cramps, Crass, et al. But I like newer stuff too. Some of those old Punk bands were often critical of state-incorporated Religion, but they were rarely ever critical of Christ Himself. Maybe that’s why even the semi-anti-statist evangelical thinker, the late Francis Schaefer, said of the Punk Rock movement at the time, “They’re not wrong, they’re right,” and that the State behaves “like a Beast”. Too bad his son, Franky, on a televised book signing I saw a couple years ago, now praises US Marines for what they are mindlessly doing for their WASH DC masters, to poor, overseas people, since Franky’s own son (Francis’ grandson) is now in the US Marines. A very sad familial decline indeed, spiritually and intellectually speaking.
OK! I’ll get back to the music reviewing.
Are Tiny Masters of Today like the old Punk bands? No, not so much. But with their BIG sound and the fact that they clearly promote a degree of wholesomeness, by holding some aspects of the State and the Music Industry up to ridicule (read George Bush, Brittany Spears, Gangster Rap imagery), I think that’s why I like them. But, also, for such young kids, they do capture a bit of the sound and attitude of what much of Punk Rock was about, without being as provocative. I mean, it’s great to see kids doing that, instead of being brainwashed into worshipping the memory of early Anglo-American slaveholders and mass-murdering US presidents, or being trained to emulate emotionally unstable substance abusers via a TV or as happens via socialization in communized Public State Schools. And I think one of functions of the Body of Christ is to reinforce the successive approximations by those in the Body of the State towards the target behavior, which is: Christ’s fully-established Kingdom, right now, and not when you’re dead, or after some supposed Rapture, or in some supposed Millennial Utopia someday, or after enough fascist Israelis Statists finally and forcibly remove all of the poor, and largely defenseless Palestinians from their homelands under the guise that God supposedly covets Jewish DNA above all others.
OK, OK! Back to the music review now.
These kids probably had parental help with some of the lyrics to certain songs, I’m guessing. I like the anti-statism and passive-aggressive mantra in Sticking It To The Man. Drop the Bomb seems to exhibit some fun, Hippy-era sarcasm. And Bushy sounds like there was help from a parent that may think Republicans are are not part of the same One Party System as Democrats are, i.e., The Statist Party! But Bushy is still fun to listen to, as it dubs in a couple of those actual recordings by Bush Jr., like, “It’d be a heck of a lot easier if this were a dictatorship, just so long as I’m the dictator.” And also, “And to all the C-students (Bush was a C-student, speaking to a class of college graduates, who are laughing at him), I say, You too can be president of the United States.”
But, some of the songs, like Real Good, seem to have been genuinely written by the trio. The music video Pop Chart is hilarious in its ridicule of Music Industry greediness, as the band members are seen eschewing the lewdness and immorality promoted by a mock promoter. And, Skeletons is one of my favorites of theirs, because it not only has a catchy music video with an upbeat tempo that any kid would probably enjoy seeing and hearing, but it actually has a rudimentary cognitive-emotive restructuring component to it, which trains kids how to defeat depression or phobias, under the metaphor of Skeletons, by simply directing ones self to dismiss them. I don’t know if that was in the lyrics by design or by accident, but even some so-called adults could learn from that one!
It’s not inconceivable that some of the talent already developed in the members of Tiny Master of Today could mature into tough, avant-garde musicians after the order of Duchess Says, with its songs Black Flag and Ccut Up (a couple of my favorites). Or, it would be nice to see these Brooklyn kids later settle down a bit and become more introspective, like their neighbors in the NYC area who make up the band called Interpol.
In the meantime, I recommend that people, young and young-at-heart, check out the potent sound and fun lyrics of Tiny Masters of Today, by at least freely previewing their songs and two music videos at the iTunes Store or on YouTube. And I trust that most every NJT reader who buys an iTunes gift card for use in downloading songs will list their address at iTunes or in their .Mac profile using a sales-tax free zone that they may have somewhere. And then sing along with the Tiny Masters of Today. But instead of singing “Stickin’ it to”, sing along saying, “Withholdin’ it from the Man. Withholdin’ it from the Man, every day!”